Posted
by
Zonk
on Tuesday October 10, 2006 @04:19PM
from the quickest-stock-run-ever dept.

Warlock7 writes "Well, it's official. The pre-orders have begun ... and mostly ended. I just got mine ordered and four hours later there are already units on eBay. Some acutions have already gone north of $1000 USD. The guys at
EBGames told me that the most units going to any one store was 36 and that there were an average of 8 units being distributed to each store. The one I went to reported that they were going to be getting a total of 16 units. They waited this long to take pre-orders because they wanted to be sure that they weren't going to get burned like they did for the XBox 360 launch." The reports from across the internets are varied, with long lines netting nothing for some, and others reaping the sweet rewards.

I have a better idea. I'll wait to get one (if I bother at all) and then when I do all the bugs will have worked out, there will be more games available, it will cost less I won't have to wait in any ureasonably long lines and I won't have helped fuel Sony's ridiculous hype machine.

I cannot believe this got modded informative. If anyone actually wants to fund their retirement this way, let me know...I have plenty of invites I can sell them. I cannot guarantee future market value though, so there is a tiny bit of risk.

After hearing chatter about PS3 pre-orders at GameStop in #ps2 on efnet, I checked your site in order to see if it was true. I figured since it was my night off, I might as well waste it camping out for a few hours...Once I got to my nearest Gamestop, I saw there was only one guy camping...He had gotten there at 5 a.m.

Now there's a gamer -- standing in line at GameStop from 6:30 to 9 qualifies as "camping out".

"After hearing chatter about PS3 pre-orders at GameStop in #ps2 on efnet, I checked your site in order to see if it was true. I figured since it was my night off, I might as well waste it camping out for a few hours...Once I got to my nearest Gamestop, I saw there was only one guy camping...He had gotten there at 5 a.m."

Now there's a gamer -- standing in line at GameStop from 6:30 to 9 qualifies as "camping out".

Too right! after all clearly the guy going there at 5am was a camper, but what the commenter le

How many consoles have we gone through that had problems on release? Everything from the DS Lite cracking, to the xbox controllers being the size of a small gorilla, to the xbox360 over heating, to faulting dvd roms of the ps2. Its almost at the point where its guaranteed to have a flaw in it. And i feel worse for people who buy it on ebay at an extra $500/pop.

And with all these horrid rumors of design flaws with the ps3, its more of a reason to just wait it out. Same with the Wii. I refuse to believe that 6 months down the line, they are going to come up with a much more accurate wiimote than the have now.

Personally, I have only ever had a single problem with a Nintendo made product and that was I got a disc-read error on my launch Gamecube about 8 months after I bought it. My dealings with Nintendo's customer service about my broken Gamecube were so good that I have no worries about buying a Wii at launch; essentially, Nintendo just told me where to drop off the Gamecube and they shipped a refurbished Gamecube overnight to their Depot so I only had 1 day without my gamecube.

The PS3, on the other hand, I would be worried about mainly because I have had bad experiences with Sony's customer service in the past and the PS3 has a first generation optical disc drive in it; my memories of first generation CD-RW and DVD/DVD-RW drives tells me that the most you can really expect from a drive like this is (about) 12 months of usage. I never want to have another system (like my PS2) where I own it for 13 months and have to go buy a brand new system (at full price) because of a disc-read error.

My brother has been through 3 PS2's and an XBox. A friend of mine; 2 PS2's and is awaiting his third 360. I've only purchased Nintendo stuff. Haven't had any problems so far and everything I own save the original NES was purchased at launch. (My SNES has even turned greenish on some pieces of plastic, but plays fine). I don't have any qualms about getting a release model of the Wii.

If I were looking for early-adopter flaws, I'd select some that have actually been fixed. Even slimline PS2s suffer more drive failures than any other optical-drive console I've ever used. Someday when all the PS2s have failed because their drives died, you'll still be able to get a working Sega CD from a flea market.

If I were looking for early-adopter flaws, I'd select some that have actually been fixed. Even slimline PS2s suffer more drive failures than any other optical-drive console I've ever used.

Well, yeah, but if you didn't leave it on the rug where your cat sleeps, it would probably last a bit longer.

Actually, I'm allergic to cats, and I have stands that hold all my equipment. The PS2 is on top of the switchbox is on top of the Xbox, all in a cubby in my TV stand; All my stereo equipment is in one of the

Anyone who buys a console on day 1 needs their head examined. Aside from bragging rights, or sell the thing on ebay, what is the point? If a console is THAT GOOD, it will be just as good a few months down the road. Then you can make an informed purchase decision in the absence of hype and with a good chance of getting a replacement if the thing turns out to be broken.

This applies equally to the Wii, or any other shiny overhyped piece of kit (e.g. anything made by Apple). Never buy version 1.0 of anything

I'm going to buy a Wii at launch. My thought is, at $250, I'll have that much fun in the first 3 months before it breaks/burns down the house/explodes/etc. And then I'll buy one that has been 'fixed' a few months later and everything will be good.

At $600? Hell no. I didn't even buy a 360 until a month or 2 ago. And I still worry like crazy that it'll overheat and die.

You presume that there are enough games to have 3 months worth of fun, that the kit works faultlessly, that the controller is as good as the hype, that the online services (are there any?) don't crash under the load, that the Wii is going to be "better" subjectively than the other consoles. If it's that much fun then it will be that much fun in a few months time when there might be a few more titles. Meanwhile as you say, you've got an XBox360 so I assume there are plenty of titles popping out around Christ

While you may think me deranged, I have a fair amount of faith in Nintendo as a company. So far this hasn't failed me. Nintendo has an excellent reliability track record, even taking into account DS lite problems. They almost always get it right the first time, and when they don't, they fix it. Also, I want to play Twilight Princess + a half dozen other release titles, and if my monkey instincts make me want to play them sooner, rather than later, well, what can I say?

More telling, in my opinion, is the number of original (>20 year old) NES machines that can still be made to work perfectly with just this trick. Your PS1 still work? How about your friends'? Hell, how many people do you know that have had to replace a faulty PS2?

Granted the NES design could have been better (by "better" I mean a top loading cartridge, like the SNES and the famicom in Japan). However, the NES was designed that way in orde

I second the emotion on the subject of the original US Xbox controller. I have gigantic hands and the little controller is poop, it fatigues my hands to use it because I have to manipulate it with my fingertips, or else set it on my lap and poke at it with tweezers. I'm glad Microsoft brought out the smaller controller to shut up all the tiny-handed people out there, but I'm sad that they discontinued the old one... but then again, I'm glad that most people like the smaller controller better, because it mea

Actually, they are using cutting edge technology on their console, except, as stated in some recent interviews on the official site, they are utilizing these advances for their low cooling requirements and power requirements.

At the time of my looking at it, sure amounts were at 1,000 bucks or higher, but that was the starting bid and no one has yet bid on it. Not saying it won't happen, but at the time of story posting it is misleading.

People were paying almost that much for consoles in the previous generation, and inflation has marched on since then. A fool and his money are soon parted, regardless of how much money he might have - it's the amount of foolishness that determines how long it takes, not the amount of money.

GameStop now takes your $100, puts it in the bank, gets mad interest off of your cash and another 400,000 reservations, and you're left with nothing. Instead of just having customers pay when the product is physically here.... Sorry, but I want a product when I put cash down.

Close, pre-orders are hype-machines. The fewer machine they put out means the easier it is to declare that all pre-orders sold out, and the bigger hype they can get from envious users who want to be able to claim that they have a PS3 pre-ordered as well. Think about it; would there be that much hype over the damn things if Sony released like 3.0 million world wide and every store had ~ 50 or so to shell out to people? (more in cities with higher populations) Hell, in that scenario, people would be more su

The entire continent is getting 400k units. GameStop/EB is not going to get them all. Best Buy, Circuit City, WalMart, and more will be selling them without preorders.

It's not really a scam to me. The way I see it, I am forfeiting the interest from that $100 in exchange for a) waiting outside in the chilly October cold rather than the frigid November cold and b) not having to wait for more than 24 hours outside.

I've only waited like that one time, for the midnight release of Halo 2, and it was inside. Probably not the best use of my time, but really, it was more about the camaraderie with the other people in line with me. The talking about video games, playing GBAs, and the anticipation, rather than getting the product itself.

The product launch is about a month away, you put down $100. Lets say you could get 4.40% (currently what I get on savings).
($100*.044)/12 =.36
So you are paying a.36 "fee" to be certain to get a system. Ripoff? hardly.

They're also not making that much sure they'll make some interest, but it's less than 45 days away, it's not like they've had the money for months. They're certainly not making "mad interest" as you suggest.

On top of that, if the item doesn't show up, you get your deposit back.

I would guess some of them edge over the fine lines between what ebay allows and doesn't. Possible candidate violations include:

Contracts [ebay.com] (Pre-orders may be non-transferable and thus restricted, but the service of purchasing a PS3 on the day of launch with a "guarentee" through the seller's indicated pre-order, might not.)

Technically, it's thirty days after the listing ends rather than 30 days until the product is out so any listing that ends before the 19th (or later depending on how long it takes for the seller to get and deliver the PS3) would be considered restricted.

I was going to mod this discussion, but I had to reply.Ebay doesn't give a crap about its policies. When someone can list a $50 shipping fee (via regular old post) and a 10% handling fee (based on the final auction price), which are both very clearly against ebay "policy", and ebay's response to an email inquiry into these is "Ebay trusts its sellers to set appropriate prices" (RE: fuck off) then they don't mean shit. Especially if you're a powerseller.

They are just lazy at policing it. I bought a case for my cellphone from ebay where it was fairly obvious the price was in the shipping, instead of the bid. A month later, I get a message saying the seller's products had all been removed for improper pricing.

In my experience it is rare. When I was quite active on Ebay last year over about 3 months, I reported a lot of things to ebay, most were quite obvious things (like the ridiculously excessive shipping) or blatant misleading titles (D-link NOT linksys or cisco) and everytime the form letter was of the tone "Fuck off we're not going to touch it, this guy has sold 20,000 items here" Because powersellers are the worst offenders by far. I also found powersellers saturating an item, i.e. 20 or 30 of them (ebay li

- it's a preorderm might not even happen- they are willing to be the guinea pigs to try out the first (possibly faulty) batch of PS3- how do you call something that's overpriced, and then overpriced again? But yea, that too.

So keep it going. If I ever buy a PS3, it'll be in an year or so when I'll get it for less than its current retail price, with rich game selection, stable performance (all major software and hardware bugs fixed), and if it flops I might even just save myself the $500 or so, and just play with my xbox.

Not only is the stupidity limited to consoles but to domain names and email addresses so "sellers can get in early" and do what? Profit off a dorky email address based on one product that will die down after New Years? I don't think that works too well anymore, like in the early dot.com days. (sarcasm)

Wait, so, standing in line in order to get something that you're just going to resell to get more money while the person behind you wants to buy the same item for her kids for Christmas, and then realizes her checkbook was empty and has to leave, is a reward?

I guess on the bright side, it saved her lots of cash to buy other (hopefully less expensive) things for her kids.

How is it being a weasel? If people are willing to pay more for one off eBay, they must think it's worth it. Are you scamming them by giving them what they want at a price they agree to? The fact that this even happens only shows that the manufacturers have set the price too low for the demand. I honestly don't understand the ill-will directed at the "pre-order then sell on eBay" crowd.

Oh, stop it already. That story of the mom in line to pick up a brand-spanking new console for her kid is a hasty generalization at best.

Why don't you think of the hard working widower Dad that needs to work 12 hours a day to pay for his Son's cancer treatment and wants to make his son's life more cheerful by buying him a PS3 from eBay because that's the only place he can get his hands on one?

From both accounts I've read, it seems like stores might not be playing by the rules. Rumors that only 2 per store were for friends or family, with one store selling six to friends and family and another selling all of theirs... I think it would be fitting if Sony did an investigation and refused to give ANY to a store that had a problem like that. Many of the 'friends and family' are probably just making money on EBay...

RootkitsProprietary Media - MD, DAT, Memory Sticks, little odd writeable DVD's for their camcorders, PSP's oddball media, Beta, and now BluRay. I'm sick sick sick of the intentional fracturing of the market at the expense of the customer.A Laptop installed with XP that _couldn't_ take SP2 due to a crappy memory controller.Decisions for music players that just flat seemed STUPID (ATRAC?)The fact they're betting the company on this one, expensive, item that has a cobbled together controller at a price I don't care to spend, forcing a media format I do not want.

Coupled with my moving away from physical media for entertainment purposes (I'll probable not get either competing format. I shifted from record and 8track to cassette, then CD's, from VHS to laserdisk to DVD.) I'm tired of re-buying the White Album, catch my drift?

Are you guys really falling all over yourselves for this company? Haven't they screwed you enough? (And by you, I mean the Customer)

Sony is an example of a machine that's gotten so large, it cannot move without standing on itself. I see no reason my money should reward it for its actions.

I agree with most of what you said. I hate that any company uses proprietary stuff but lets leave PSP's media out of this. The PSP is a handheld game console and it's expected to use proprietary media. It's not like Nintendo is making handhelds that use regular dvd's, nor should they be expected to. For things like digital cameras we only need one standard. All cameras could use the same cards and then we wouldn't need 15-n-1 card readers anymore. But when I buy a game system I expect to have to use whateve

Are you guys really falling all over yourselves for this company? Haven't they screwed you enough? (And by you, I mean the Customer)

On the contrary. SCE has delivered two solid platforms already, each with thousands of games, hundreds of those being of excellent quality. Too many to play, too many to choose from. This isn't what I call "screwing over".

Does Sony/BMG do stupid stuff? Yes. Does Sony Pictures do stupid stuff? They're MPAA---yes. Does Sony Computer Entertainment do stupid stuff? Probably, but less so. What they have done is deliver a solid platform with a solid library. Have they secretly funded organizations to undermine the Linux community? No. So, yes, I'm "voting" with my dollar; I may "vote no" to Sony/BMG, I may "vote no" to Sony Pictures, but I will "vote yes" to SCE. May they set an example for the rest of the company.

Any why not? Its a division but its still eventually run by the same people. Personally I don't buy anything Sony now because no matter what division they are from they all seem to think that they can do no wrong. I'm sorry but I've seen to many comments from people at Sony for the PS3 that I thought were condecending and lost them my bussiness for ever. I will buy a Wii and Possiably an xbox360 but I will never own another Playstation.

My house has two ubuntu systems, a linux firewall, Two OS X systems and my wife's computer. There's one copy of a Microsoft OS in my house and it wasn't my decision for it to be here.
I'm voiting with my money. Are you?

I take it you're not a gamer then, and you shouldn't really bother participating in this discussion, except to bait those of us who DO play games into a flamefest?Or, wait, do you own a 360, or original Xbox. You only mentioned MS having one MS OS... Are you being evasive?

Do you buy consoles/games from lawsuit happy only-official-strategy-guides, "emulators are illegal", everything-20-years-old-is-new-again, Now In Pink! Nintendo?

Sony publically apologized for the rootkits... Which was a Sony BMG decisio

Aww heck, you got me. There's a modded Xbox and a 'Virgin' Xbox, an iMac I neglected to count, one more PC running Vista, and a Wii's on my list.FWIW, of the 14 Xbox games I have, 5 were bought new, the rest were second hand.

But I'm _not_ getting a 360. Just like I'm not getting a PS3. So what's yer point? I think BOTH companies have become unresponsive behemoths that can't make product due to their being too successful too long. Their legacy is weighing them down.

I don't care if you're not going to buy the ps3. I also don't care if you're going to use the hypothetical money you set aside for a ps3, to now buy a Wii. I don't care that you feel so persecuted by one company that you take every chance you get to tell everyone about your Sony boycott.

...The mere mention of the word "rootkit" should not mean you automatically get modded "funny".

Slashdots games section is next only to Gamefaqs when it comes to trollish/childish behaviour. And now since I'm adding nothing to this discussion, I'll leave to start my own boycott.

From the eBay rules site:Pre-sale listings are those that describe items for sale that are not in the control or possession of the seller at the time of the listing. These listings generally consist of items that are sold in advance of a delivery date to the public.

eBay permits Pre-sale listings only on a limited basis. The seller must guarantee that t

Except there is nothing "artificial" about the shortages of 360 and PS3. Especially in Microsofts case, to beat Sony they need as many systems sold as fas as possible. So unless this "artificial" shortages were a conspiracy involving *everyone* from the chip makers down to the assembly workers, it just isn't true. They've been pumping out at full capacity.

The free variable is release date. If they wanted, they could keep stockpiling them in warehouses until they had enough. I'm not saying they should, only that, yes, it is their choice how many to have on hand when they lauch.

The only real sport to be found through a computer nowadays is trolling message boards.

Which you seem to be pretty good at indeed. You injected the perfect amount of truth, in this case quite a bit, just with (mostly) wrong (well, IMO) conclusions. Ie. gaming isn't dead, it's just kinda sucky at the moment.

This "gen" won't be a writeoff either, even if what you say is somewhat true. The Wii will prove useful, even if it sucks for traditional games(not enough evidence at this point to say with 100% certai

Dude, Sony already sold out, big-time. I remember when they were an unsigned console manufacturer, setting up at dive bars for 20 people to play a few games for a quarter each. Yeah, PlayStation (back then, that's all it was; there was no PSP or PS2 or PS3) was primitive and unpolished by their standards of today, but you could tell there was passion behind it. It used to be about the gaming, man, it used to be about the gaming. Now, it's all corpo